Afghan Electoral Protests to Be Heard

Election officials agreed Sunday to establish a commission to investigate complaints of fraud and mismanagement as some candidates appeared to back down from their demand that Afghanistan’s first presidential election be invalidated.

The country’s election board, which includes Afghan and United Nations officials, said it would investigate complaints about defective ink and other irregularities. At least three of the 15 presidential candidates who had demanded that the election be declared invalid said they would accept the findings of the investigation. A senior Western official said several other candidates were leaning toward dropping their protests, and might accept the commission’s findings.

Members of the election board met throughout the day to develop a “mechanism” for an investigation that would be “transparent and comprehensive,” said Manoel de Almeida e Silva, spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan.

The decision by some candidates to agree to an investigative commission follows what appears to be broad support among Afghans for the election.

The senior Western official, who was involved in discussions about the dispute, said the candidates were “looking for a way out, so to speak, that lets them save face.” He said it was important to resolve the issue quickly so that candidates would send representatives, as stipulated under election rules, to observe the counting process.

Millions of Afghans turned out to vote Saturday in the face of bad weather, intimidation by local strongmen and threats of violence by Taliban militants. Despite scattered attacks across the country and numerous irregularities -- including allegations of outright fraud -- the election was largely orderly and peaceful.

However, the process was marred when rivals of interim President Hamid Karzai claimed that some Afghans voted more than once because they were able to wash off the supposedly indelible ink used to stain the thumbs of voters. The election board conceded Sunday that some poll workers used ordinary marker pens to color voters’ thumbs, and that in other cases the ink supplied was not indelible.

Because many voters are believed to have registered more than once, some could have used extra voting cards to vote again.

The commission, whose four or five members will be appointed by Jean Arnault, head of the U.N. assistance mission here, will investigate all complaints of irregularities, not just those filed by candidates.

The candidates’ allegations have been downplayed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born U.S. ambassador who is a powerful behind-the-scenes figure here and by Karzai, who came to power with direct U.S. help.

Both men, who have said the election should go forward, spent Sunday mediating the complaints.

Their position received support from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which called the demand to annul the election “unjustified.” The organization, which had observers at election centers Saturday, called for a thorough inquiry that would require candidates to present evidence of fraud.

Annulling the election would “put into question the expressed will of millions of Afghan citizens who came out to vote ... despite great personal risk,” said Robert Barry, OSCE director in Afghanistan.

Election officials said the counting of ballots, to be done by hand, probably would not start until Tuesday. The laborious process may take two to three weeks.

The ballots are being sent to eight regional centers, with the final tallies to be forwarded to Kabul, the capital. The first returns are expected early this week, they said.

The OSCE and other monitoring groups reported numerous irregularities, including intimidation and voters being coached by candidates’ agents and election officials and turned away when ballot boxes filled up.

The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan said many election officials were poorly trained and did not provide ballots or ballot boxes in time for some polling centers to open.

The election is significant not only for Afghanistan, but for the Bush administration, which is counting on a successful outcome in order to declare progress in its war against terrorists. U.S. forces, which toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001, directed a massive and largely successful security operation during the voting.

A U.S. official said 27 rockets were confiscated in Kabul and a truck containing five tons of explosives was seized in Kandahar just before the election.

On Sunday, Taliban insurgents mounted two attacks in Oruzgan province, killing two Afghan police officers and wounding a coalition soldier, the Afghan Defense Ministry said.

Karzai, whom rivals contend is unfairly favored by the U.S., called Saturday’s vote a “defeat of terrorism.”

“It’s too late to call for a boycott now that millions of Afghans have voted,” Karzai told reporters.

“We should respect the people’s will.”

Electoral director Farooq Wardak conceded that the election was not perfect.

“There could be mistakes,” he said. “We are just human beings.”

Silvana Puizina, a U.N. official on the secretariat of the Joint Electoral Management Body, said the board was weighing all options in deciding how to set up the commission.

“This is very crucial,” Puizina said. “It has to be transparent and fair to all participants.”

De Almeida e Silva, the U.N. assistance mission spokesman, said the commission would consult with independent experts so that it could earn the “total support” of everyone, including voters and candidates.

Late Sunday, some of Karzai’s rivals softened their complaints during a meeting in Kabul to discuss the electoral board’s commission.

Nasir Ahmad Insaf, a vice-presidential running mate of ethnic Hazara candidate Mohammed Mohaqiq, said Khalilzad had met Mohaqiq to discuss the commission and other ways to deal with complaints of irregularities.

Mohaqiq supported the commission, Insaf said.

Shafiqa Habibi, a running mate of an ethnic Uzbek leader, warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, said she argued in favor of a commission during Sunday’s meeting.

Massouda Jalal, the only woman among the presidential candidates, said she would back the commission because a peaceful resolution of the dispute was “in the national interest.”

Karzai’s chief rival, former Cabinet minister Younis Qanooni, 47, was considering accepting the formation of a commission, the senior Western official said.

“He’s a young man still,” the official said.

“He doesn’t want to be perceived as standing in the way of the will of the people.”

*

Times staff writer Paul Watson contributed to this report.